José Gómez Ortega

José Gómez Ortega, known as Joselito, was a Spanish bullfighter and one of the defining figures of the early twentieth-century corrida. Celebrated for technical command and confidence, he became a central rival of Juan Belmonte.

Joselito was killed by a bull at Talavera de la Reina in 1920. His death at the height of his fame contributed to the legend of a ‘golden age’ of Spanish bullfighting.

Ernest Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon is also a highly personal critical history of modern bullfighting. Hemingway compares courage, artistry, fear and failure through bullfighters including Juan Belmonte and José Gómez Ortega, known as Joselito, while an argumentative dialogue with the fictional “Old Lady” allows him to challenge both admirers and opponents of the spectacle. Technical description, portraits, photographs and a glossary combine in an inquiry into ritual violence, spectatorship and the unstable boundary between skill and death.